Prayers fulfilled - celebration in the Romanian Diocese of Canada

4 years from enthronement

May 7, 2017 represents for each of the Romanian Orthodox in Canada an opportunity for joy and meditation, but also for the special gratitude towards our Creator. God the Father overwhelmed us, in His great mercy, and the dream of having a Romanian Diocese of Canada came true.

This moment was marked by a Tedeum service through which priests and believers thanked God for the rich gifts He poured out on the hierarch of our Diocese but also on the Diocese as a whole.

Rev. Fr. George Bâzgan administrative-vicar, in his address, stressed that this anniversary gives us an opportunity to have a retrospective regard and recalled what His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian, the first Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada, said four years ago: “This wonderful moment it sanctifies the effort, thoughts and hopes of the generations of Romanians who have lived in Canada for almost 125 years. And a church can only be alive and be actual through confession and martyrdom, a church can only be prophetic, that is, alive and renewing and transforming.”

It was hoped that the Diocese's plans would continue at least with the same enthusiasm, devotion, and brotherhood in Christ as before.

Warm wishes and evocations of the beginning moments of the Diocese but also a review of current projects were made by the representatives of the three Deaneries of Canada, Fr. Mircea Panciuk, Fr. George Chișcă, Fr. Viorel Țencaliuc and Psa Claudia Aileni (AROLA) and Mrs. Carmen Ognean. 

The speakers showed that Bishop Ioan Casian has done an impressive activity in all these years, the countless visits and the close knowledge of the life of each parish both in the administrative field, but especially in the pastoral-missionary, having as priority and permanent concern to offer to the faithful and to the communities of the Romanian diaspora in Canada, a dynamic Church, strong and able to adapt to the realities of the society where we live, keeping and reviving the roots and the connection with the mother country.

Thanking warmly for your prayers and wishes, HG Bishop Ioan Casian showed that the day of enthronement, in the highest dignity in the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada, is a day that belongs in equal measure to him but to the whole Diocese too. Observing the constant need to renew and strengthen the life of the diocese, the hierarch showed that “Being aware of the difficulties and limitations we have we remain determined to respond to the desires to have new parishes and new monasteries and we look at this from the perspective of what would be meant Moldova without the churches, monasteries and work of St. Stephen the Great. This is one of the great examples we need to keep in mind.”

At the hour of joy and thanksgiving we address to our hierarch, to the clergy and to the faithful of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada best wishes of health and happiness, wishes for holy help from God in pastoral, missionary and cultural activity to strengthen Romanian Orthodoxy here in Canada.

Many years to the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada!

Many years Your Grace!